More than 33 years after the City of Union first allowed the Union Country Club to use a portion of its property for a golf course, the two parties may soon have a working lease agreement.
In a Board of Aldermen meeting April 7, Mayor Wayne Welch said he had given the aldermen a copy of a lease agreement drawn up in 2005 several months ago to review. However, there was no record of the board ever approving it.
In fact, the 2005 lease agreement was the second lease the city had with the country club that was never approved.
“In 1987, the board voted for a 99-year lease,” Welch said.
In minutes from the 1987 meeting, Welch said, it states the board motioned to instruct the city attorney to draw up a lease to be voted on by the board. City Clerk Cheryl Chaney said she could find no record of that happening.
“I went back and started when Bobby Everett was the town attorney,” Chaney said. “He was supposed to draw up a lease, and the board was supposed to approve it. I went back from ’87 to ’90.”
The 2005 lease allowed for an 81-year term for a cost of $1. The lease stipulates the country club could not interfere with use of the airport for its intended purpose and allowed the Board of Aldermen to terminate the lease on 90 days notice if needed.
“The board never acted on the 2005 lease,” Welch said.
Welch said he had heard from Robert Blount, president of the Union Country Club, prior to the meeting. After discussing the issue with the country club board of directors, Blount said they would be willing to pay $6,000 per year, which is equal to $500 per month, to use the property.
“He said that if you all would go along with this, he would give the town $6,000 in the morning. That’d be $500 a month,” Welch said.
However, since no lease has been approved by the board, Welch said the board would also need to draw up a new lease and get it approved.
Blount said the lease issues first came up in October when Mayor Welch and Alderman Billy McCune called a meeting with him to discuss payment for the county club using city land. It was at that meeting, he said, that he first learned the 2005 lease agreement was not valid.
“I didn’t know what the meeting was about, but they informed us they wanted to start charging Union Country Club $1,000 a month for a user fee,” he said.
“That just kind of blindsided us, and I told them that there was no way we could pay them $12,000 a year. We just don’t have that kind of money.”
Union Country Club is a nonprofit organization and a community club, Blount said. The money from membership dues, green fees and concessions goes directly back into maintaining the grounds and improving the club.
“Last year, we had to rework the road all the way from the gate into the golf course,” he said. “Bulldozers, track-hoes, gravel and all that; it was expensive. $19,000,” he said.
This year, Blount said, the club is working to put a new liner in its pool, which is expected to cost another $12,000.
Additionally, he said, the club pays more than $5,200 in taxes each year. About $2,700 goes to Neshoba County, where the country club is located, and another $2,500 goes to support the schools.
Blount said the country club is a small organization that works hard to make every dollar count, and, in his opinion, the golf course is better than it has ever been. Having some of the clubs funds taken away from the course to pay rent has been a hard adjustment to make, he said.
In addition to including the new amount in the lease, Board Attorney Doug Smith advised he would also include an insurance provision, which would require the country club to maintain adequate liability insurance in case of an incident. Since the country club is leasing city property, he said the provision would help reduce the city’s liability if an incident were to occur.
Also, Smith said, although the previous two leases were not approved, they may not have been legal anyway. State laws restrict a sitting board from obligating future boards to follow certain terms. In this case, with board terms ending next year, Smith said he would advise against a lease that went beyond the current board’s term.
After discussion, the board voted to accept the country club’s offer of $6,000 per year and instruct Smith to draw up a lease running through December 2021.
Among board members of the Union Country Club, Blount said there is some concern about the new agreement. While the lease for the next two years may be $500 per month, some are concerned the next board will raise the fee again. For a small organization, he said, the uncertainty of a 4-year lease term is a hard pill to swallow.
Blount said he would continue talking to the Board of Aldermen and mayor as the lease process continued. The city officials want what’s best for Union, and the country club wants what is best for its members. His hope, he said, is with continued discussion, both parties can get on the same page.
